Recherche – Detailansicht
Ausgabe: | Dezember/2017 |
Spalte: | 1367–1369 |
Kategorie: | Dogmen- und Theologiegeschichte |
Autor/Hrsg.: | Oermann, Nils Ole |
Titel/Untertitel: | Albert Schweitzer. A Biography. |
Verlag: | Oxford u. a.: Oxford University Press 2017. 352 S. Geb. US$ 45,00. ISBN 978-0-19-878422-7. |
Rezensent: | James Carleton Paget |
The book under review is essentially a translation, with only minor changes, of Nils Ole Oermann’s successful biography of Schweitzer, which appeared first in German in 2009 (Albert Schweitzer: eine Biographie [Munich: Beck]), and is now in its 5th edition.
In broad terms the work is laid out chronologically. Schweitzer’s early life in his parents’ manse in rural Alsace, near Colmar, is cov-ered relatively swiftly and more or less in accord with things which Schweitzer himself presents in his autobiography of 1924, Aus meiner Kindheit und Jugendzeit, a work which reflects some of the qualities of a homily and is loosely based upon discussions Schweitzer had with the Freudian Lutheran pastor, Oskar Pfister, which the latter had hoped to publish, no doubt in a different form. O. devotes much space to Schweitzer’s time as a student at the new Prussian univer-sity of Strassburg, which the conquerors of the Reichsland had creat-ed after the Franco-Prussian war of 1870, years, which have been especially illuminated by the publication, in the early 1990s of Schweitzer’s correspondence with the woman who was to be his wife, Helene Bresslau, and various other portions of Nachlass, all pub-lished by C. H. Beck of Munich. O. guides us through Schweitzer’s principal works of that period whether theological or philosophical, as well as his activities as an organist, musicologist, and subsequently trainee doctor. Particular attention is also paid to the background to Schweitzer’s decision to go as a medical missionary to Africa. O. makes a number of important observations. He notes, for instance, that while Schweitzer was strikingly broad in his interests, such breadth was facilitated by an approach to his work that was single-minded and always focused on a particular problem (there is, for instance, a link between the thesis of his earliest theological exam, on the last supper, and his subsequent publications on the New Testament). O. also notes that Schweitzer’s decision to go to the Gabon may not necessarily have interrupted what would have been a great academic career – reviews in Germany of Schweitzer’s early works, especially those devoted to the study of Jesus, were highly critical, Schweitzer’s opinions were those of an outsider and his disposition was not straightforwardly academic (his work on Kant, for instance, barely cited any secondary literature), a point Schweitzer was ex-plicit about not least when discussing his own philosophical views. On Schweitzer’s academic output, O. is helpfully clear, showing up the persistence of his theological liberalism and pinpointing the major aspects of his philosophy of reverence for life, whether these emanated from Kant or Nietzsche. Emerging from this is an Enlightenment-inspired individualism, deeply critical of the collecti-vistic tendencies of the industrialised west, and based upon a hope for cultural renewal in a transformation of human attitudes rather than a political or social programme.
O. implies, though never explicitly states, that Schweitzer was perhaps better suited to a musical career where his success both as a regular player of Bach for the newly-formed Bach Society of Paris, as a writer on Bach, initially in French and then in German, together with his internationally recognized expertise on the manufacture of organs, brought him a good deal of esteem, not least from J. M. Widor and his circle.
Schweitzer’s decision to give up his apparently flourishing career as academic and organist is shown, with the aid in particular of his correspondence with Helene Bresslau, to have been a more circuitous and convoluted affair than Schweitzer himself implies in his some-what anaemic biography of 1931 (O. is good at questioning other elements of that biography, including the view that the idea for reverence for life came to him only in 1915 while on a boat on the Ogouwe River), and was not necessarily an absolute or final decision, as Schweitzer’s attempt to retain his position at the university while still in Africa shows.
O., who began life as a historian of German missions in Africa, is especially sure-footed when dealing with Schweitzer’s time in the Gabon, which was the dominant aspect of his life from 1913 to his death in 1965. He delineates the vagaries of the hospital’s success at Lambarene, pinpointing both financial and other difficulties it encountered. Inevitably, and correctly, O. seeks to judge Schweitzer’s attitude to the indigenous population with whom he worked. Schweitzer came to believe that Europeans had a right to colonise Africa as long as they showed themselves morally fit exercisers of power and he was clear about the superiority of European cultures over those of Africa, even if highly critical of the former. He did occasionally hit some of the Gabonese who worked for him, operated a form of segregation in his hospital (Europeans and Gabonese ate separately, for instance) and was a staunch opponent of African independence, believing in an incrementalist approach to self-rule in which the colonies moved through various phases of development. Towards the end of his life, such attitudes began to lead to a more negative reappraisal of his life, and he became, as he remains, a storm centre of controversy, where he had once been widely held to be a symbol of European humanity in a post-war setting in which moral confidence on European culture had taken a nose-dive. O., while ac-knowledging the downside of all of this, not least when considered against the background of Schweitzer’s idea of reverence for life, ar-gues, however, that in spite of these significant criticisms, Schweitzer’s attitudes and behaviour towards those with whom he worked were very different from many Europeans who worked on the African continent, and that his hospital was an effective and respected medical centre.
O. is excellent on Schweitzer’s later years. He discusses his growing fame, both in Europe, especially in Germany, and in the United States. He shows how Schweitzer used that fame, not least after he received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1953, to promote his strong oppo-sition to nuclear testing and proliferation, issuing important public statements and writing numerous letters to significant political figures. In this phase of his life Schweitzer showed how ›political‹ he could be, both as a networker (there are over 65.000 letters in the archive at Günsbach, where Schweitzer lived when he was resident in Europe) and a curator of his own image (though he was never in a straightforwardly party-political figure). In this period Schweitzer’s judgment was not always reliable. In one of the book’s most significant contributions to Schweitzer studies, O. shows how Schweitzer allowed himself to be manipulated by various senior figures in the GDR, who through giving money to Lambarene, sought to associate their repressive regime with Schweitzer. When Schweitzer praised Walter Ulbricht for governing a state which seemed to give clear voice to the idea of reverence for life, or failed openly to denounce the building of the Berlin wall, he showed himself at best nieve, not least because he appeared to be giving succor to a collectivist state whose governing principles were so at odds with his own. But in his capa-city as the world’s conscience, he wanted to be seen to transcend national differences, a need which had also led him to fail to speak out publicly against the Nazi regime, in spite of calls for him to do so.
O., aided by the recently published Nachlass of Schweitzer, gives us a clear-sighted portrait of the man. He is presented as flawed, a man of personal vanity who was keen to curate his image for the furtherance of his ethical ideals, which were so deeply associated with their progenitor. On occasion his desire to fulfill his ethical aspirations could appear heartless (O.s good on the many absences from his wife, caused by the latter’s sickness and Schweitzer’s commitment to his work). In trying to locate Schweitzer’s real contribution, O. pin points, as many have done, the coming together in one man of thought and action. As an example of ethical integrity, he continues to inspire.
O.’s book will continue to be the ›go to‹ biography on Schweitzer for many years. Experts will have their quibbles whether these re-late to his assessment of Schweitzer as an academic, the inspirations which lay behind his idea of reverence for life, the character of his religion and the nature of his role in Africa; and the question of Schweitzer’s ongoing contribution will continue to stimulate de-bate for many years. In intellectual terms, it is probably the case that his greatest contribution lies as a New Testament scholar, though his philosophy, even if lacking academic purchase, contains within itself relevance in an age of environmental destruction and international tension. As a missionary doctor on the Gabon his contribu-tion may not have been exceptional, but its power lies in the fact that it was an attempt, even a Nietzschean attempt, to give voice to the main pillars of his thought.
In a relatively brief compass, O. has succeeded in giving his reader a real flavor of this most intriguing of public intellectuals and has done so while avoiding the temptation to thoughtless praise or denunciation.